New Add-on: Publish for Approval

by Ben Long

Automator.us has released a new add-on for Aperture that provides a sophisticated, automated way to get client approval of a set of images. The new Publish For Approval package is an AppleScript-based application that works as follows:

• A web page is created of your images, and sent to the client.
• The client clicks on any images that they approve.
• Back in your Aperture project, the approved images are automatically put in a Smart Album.

No longer do you have to put up a web page and ask the client to look at it and report back which file names they like. Now they can do the selection for you, while you go goof off somewhere else. Uh...I mean, while you're off shooting another job. When you get back, you'll find a Smart Album full of choices waiting for you.

You don't even have to have a domain or .mac account. Publish for Approval uses the Mac's built-in Personal Web Sharing feature (which is basically just an Apache server). However, if your machine is behind a firewall, you may need to make some changes to your router to open up the Personal Web Sharing port (port 80, the same as any other web server).

You can download Publish for Approval for free from here. However, while it's free, it requires that you also have the ACGI Dispatcher. You can download a free 30-day demo, so that you can see if Publish for Approval is really for you. After that, you'll need to pay the nominal $15 registration fee.

Full instructions and screenshots are provided at Automator.us. In addition to being a very cool way to interact with your client, Publish for Approval is also a great example of the power of AppleScript, and Automator's built-in scripting capabilities. In addition to Publish for Approval, since Aperture's release, Apple has added such features as multi-card import, , Publish for iPhone, and other goodies, all via AppleScript.

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